MIDLAND – For Midland’s Glenn Robitaille, a bad day yielded more than just a headache.
Robitaille, the director of spiritual care at Penetanguishene’s Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care, recently released his first novel, called “In Praise of Uncertainty.” He describes it as a “work of factual fiction” examining how uncompromising theological perspectives can damage a person.
“I wasn’t intending on writing a book. I was just having a bad day and was musing about these things. I sat down at my computer and out popped Chapter 1 in about 15 minutes,” he said. “I obviously had some conflict over things I’d observed and experienced. Sitting down and writing about it has been a way I resolve some of (these) things. It just seemed like a natural thing to do.”
While the book is loosely based on events that occurred, the names and places have been changed.
“It borrows energy from real events,” he explained, noting the first half of the book features a character named Nathan Grenier, who is based on the late Neil Hamelin, a well-known “character” in Penetanguishene.
“It’s a novel and it is not 100 per cent historically accurate, but the energy of it is. Its intent is to raise awareness of spiritual abuse and the impact that can have on human beings.”
Robitaille has spent 30 years in the field of mental health and is the founding pastor of Covenant Community Church in Penetanguishene. In 1999, he created the Barnabus Christian Counselling Network, which he described as the first online counselling network in the world.
He said he hopes the book, which took nearly a year to complete, will help change the way conservative Christians look at certain issues.
“(I) am hopeful I can make a major dent in a very serious problem with this book,” he said, referring to the placement of ideas above human beings. “You see things like what happened on Sept. 11, which is usually blamed on fundamental doctrines (and) people placing their beliefs over human well-being.
“It happens every day on a much smaller scale. When people exalt their beliefs over human well-being … people are objectified and end up treated badly.”
While Robitaille acknowledged the book has “ticked some people off,” most of the response to date has been positive. One person with a very conservative theology told him he had been particularly affected.
“He had a brother who had married another man, (and) the family had shunned him,” said Robitaille. “As a result of reading this book, he had changed his perspective on that whole subject. He’d contacted his brother, and he would be sitting at the Christmas table this year…. For it to have an impact on him was meaningful to me.”
“In Praise of Uncertainty” can be purchased online at www.amazon.com.